Posts Tagged ‘Trojan horse (computing)’

As an IT provider we work with many different types of people and a in variety of situations. Some can be awkward at times. Case in point is from an issue we dealt with earlier in the week.

It is very rare that we have a computer come back regarding a virus removal. Usually we remove the virus and/or malware, secure the computer and the computer is good-to-go. When we setup the computer for this client, he stated he wanted a less stringent security policy than one we normally use.

We received an urgent call from Mr. X’s office, his administrative assistant said he had a virus and it was very important we got over there to take care of it as quickly as possible. While working on the system it became obvious the owner was using his computer to surf porn sites. As the owner, he certainly has the right to do with his time whatever he chooses, and he doesn’t complain about us charging him for the almost periodic virus removals.

This does put our technicians in a very peculiar situation when they come upon an issue such as this. In all my years of working on computers, I only came upon a scenario such as this once, and while it wasn’t the owner, the man held a very high position in the company.

If someone wants to browse for porn, that is their own business. But for the sake of their company’s security, they should not do it on a computer used for the business.

Yesterday, many companies found their computers coming to a halt as a result of a computer virus which was circulating the Internet. The virus was called “here you have”, because of the subject line, is a Trojan-Horse which arrives in an email. As with many viruses of this sort, the major problems come as a result of a user clicking on the link, which then infects the computer.

One of the many benefits to having a system like our hosted email system in place, is that the internal network does not take a traffic hit. This is because the email server resides outside the local network. Our spam filtering and the initial phase of our virus scanning also takes place outside the network.

While there is no sure way to be safe on the Internet, aside from abstaining, our clients did not face the same issues as that of CBS, Disney, AIG, NASA, and many others.